The Value and Reward of Short Term Missions
When it comes to the idea of missions and missiology, it seems fitting to begin with Piper's famous quote, "Missions exists because worship doesn't."
That's the long and short of it when we begin a discussion on missions. There are people and people groups who have never heard, who have never had the ability to hear, who have no adequate gospel witness. This is heartbreaking to our Good Father and should be heartbreaking to us, too.
Much has been written and said about the value or lack of value when it comes to short term trips in the strategy of missions. I've had some of these thoughts emailed to me to try and discourage me, I've been told there are needs here next door, I've been told short term trips are a waste of money.
I'd like to give you reasons why I think short term trips are close to the heart of God.
- Access. Not everyone has access to the Gospel (gasp!). Going on a short term trip gives the chance for people who have not had the chance to get the chance to hear the Gospel message.
- Comfort Zones are changed. A chance in perspective. A chance in place. A chance in pace. These things help us get out of own comfort zones that we may not have even known that we had.
- Boldness. Let's face it. When we're in a new situation where the goal is overtly stated we are emboldened. We take more risks, which gives people there more access.
- Divine Appointments. I've seen it time and time again. People who have no access, meet people who are not like them, but are stepping out in boldness, and Divine appointments happen. God interacts with them in ways that they are more open to seeing and destinies are transformed.
- Prayer. Is prayer ever a bad thing? Does anyone ever feel like they have enough prayer in their life? Getting outside of your comfort zone and stepping out in boldness means an increase in our prayer lives. Short term trips are great for this.
- Prayer. Yes, I know I just mentioned prayer but it's worth mentioning again because this time it's different. You pray different when you get back from a trip. You have more depth to your prayers because you've been there. You've met the people and know how to pray in specifics for that region or those people.
- Boldness. What? What kind of list is this? How many times are you just going to repeat yourself? Are you going to answer any of these rhetorical questions? No. Anyways, back to boldness. Yes, you come back emboldened. If you've shared with complete strangers, then it's becoming more normal to share with friends. If you've fought with how to communicate across a language barrier, how much easier will it be when you don't have a language barrier anymore?
- Future. It's easier to see if missions is in your future if you've seen it firsthand; if you've been a part of it. Your vocabulary for it increases and gives God a chance to speak to you and see if that's a part of your future. It would have been impossible for God to tell me I was going to be in Chi Alpha as a career because I had never heard of Chi Alpha growing up. But being around Chi Alpha and being a part of it gave God the chance to speak my language, and one that a vocabulary had been built for.
So, there's 8 quick hitter reasons for doing short term missions. Some external, some internal. What would you add?
(This is a guest post from a great friend of ours. Joshua Moran is the Assistant Director at Chi Alpha at UVA and is the District Chi Alpha Rep for the Potomac District. Josh performed our wedding and was Seth's Internship Director. Josh has a wonderful wife, Katie, and three kids, Emma, Levi, and Judah. Check out Josh's blog at jmoranxa.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter: @jmoranxa)
